Of Traders and Traitors
by Violet Parma
Summary: A few years into Marcia's tenure as ExtraOrdinary Wizard, Alther comes to discuss a rumour with her. Based on Angie Sage's comment about Marcia having had a few past relationships.


Ordinarily Alther Mella enjoyed flying, but it was hard to concentrate on the pleasures of swooping through the open air when he was on his way to a potentially awkward meeting. He did, however, take a moment to buzz twice around the tip of the Pyramid on the Wizard Tower before **Discomposing** to glide through the wall. He'd wondered whether it would take a bit of **Magyk** to locate Marcia, but once inside the Library, found all he had to do was follow the sound of her muttering to herself and banging things around on shelves.

"Books giving you trouble again, Marcia?"

"What the-oh, Alther, it's you." Marcia blew a strand of curly hair out of her face with an exasperated breath. "I was wondering where you'd gone off to these last few days. Do you know where the **Mirror Magyk** books are? I thought it was this section, but all I can find are **Conjurations** and **Sendings**."

"Two rows over," said Alther. He drifted gently after her and found her trying to extract a small, square volume, covered in something that both looked and smelled like dragon hide, from where it sat wedged between two large folios on an oddly shaped corner shelf.

"I came to talk to you about something," he said.

"Go ahead." Marcia wrenched at the book, which seemed to be well and truly stuck.

"It's a bit of a delicate topic."

"For heaven's sake, Alther, how long have we known each other? You don't have to hold back with me. Fire away."

"All right then," said Alther. He cleared his throat-not that he needed to, but ghosts tended to retain the mannerisms of their time among the living. "I overheard some gossip at Sally Mullin's café yesterday."

"Oh?"

"It concerned you."

"Well, that's nothing new," said Marcia. She gave the book a final hefty yank and staggered back as it flew out in a cloud of dust and spiderwebs. "Ugh! I really must get one of the Ordinary Wizards to come up here and clean. Anyway, Sally Mullin trades more in gossip than she does in that horrible rat-infused ale of hers, and I don't doubt a lot of it is about me. They talked about you too in your time, you know." Turning her back on Alther, she carried the book over to a intricately carved lectern, thunked it down and flipped the pebbled green cover open, releasing another puff of dust.

Alther floated over to join her.

"I know," he said. "It's not the gossiping that worries me in particular, Marcia, it's what it was about. They were talking about you and a Northern Trader who had been staying in the Port for a bit, until he sailed out last week, and they mentioned some...impropriety."

A hot flush started to build in Marcia's face. She bent her head over the book and pretended to study the fly-spotted old title page to hide it.

"What sort of impropriety?"

"The improper kind," Alther said. "It appears the Trader bragged to someone, or to several someones, about having been invited up to the ExtraOrdinary Wizard's suite in the Customs House, under cover of an **Unseen**."

"He WHAT?!" Marcia clenched both hands on the rim of the lectern, restraining the urge to scream and fling the book across the room, or perhaps throw herself through the hatch that led to the roof. "Oh, if he ever shows his face in the Port again, I'll-"

"I take it the gossip is true, then," Alther said dryly.

Marcia suddenly found herself spluttering. "I mean, I certainly _knew_ him-that is, I _met_ him when I was at the Port to investigate a report about the Custodians, and we may have talked a time or two when I went back there, strictly on business of course, but-"

Alther said nothing, but raised a ghostly eyebrow, and after a moment Marcia caved in.

"Yes, all right, it's true. There, are you happy?

"I don't think 'happy' is quite the right-" Alther began, but Marcia was on a roll, and plowed onward as if he hadn't spoken.

"Listen, I don't know if you're aware of this, Alther, but I've been grown up for quite a few years now, and I'm allowed to spend a night with someone I think is nice, even if he turns out to be a-a-" Her hands were beginning to ache, and she made a deliberate effort to relax her grip before she broke either the lectern or her own fingers. "I was as discreet about it as I possibly could be, which it seems wasn't discreet enough for this Castle full of chattering busybodies, and it was only the once. Just one time, Alther, in five years of being ExtraOrdinary Wizard. Honestly, do you think I'm made of stone?"

"Of course I don't, my dear," said Alther. "And it isn't that I don't think you're entitled to a bit of companionship, it's that it worries me to think of you consorting with strangers. I would rather see you with someone who cares about you."

"Well, no one does," said Marcia, and was surprised to feel a sharp pang of sadness at what she had thought would be a matter-of-fact statement. She wished Alther would go away and stop making her upset about things she could not change.

"I do," said Alther.

"That would be a help if we were interested in each other that way," Marcia snapped, "and if you didn't already have a lady friend-oh, yes, and if you weren't a _ghost_."

Alther floated closer and brushed a translucent hand across her cheek. The touch was cool and airy, and to Marcia's dismay, made her want to sob. She stared down at the open book again and wondered how much longer this conversation was going to last. Surely it had been going on for at least a thousand years by now.

"My beautiful girl," Alther said. "I wish you would at least take on an Apprentice, as I've said before. It wouldn't help with-" He coughed politely. "With _everything_ , if you know what I mean, but you would be less lonely. A Wizard needs an Apprentice, an ExtraOrdinary Wizard even more so. Why do you suppose I was never without one for all those years?"

"So you wouldn't have to do the shopping yourself," said Marcia crossly.

"For the _company_ , Marcia," said Alther. "You and Silas were always a great comfort to me."

Even in the midst of her agitation, Marcia had to smile a bit at that, remembering how frightened she had been of Alther on her first day as his Apprentice, and how quickly she had realised that he was the kindest man in the world. At eighteen, she had wanted very badly to be treated as an adult instead of a child, and Alther had obliged her, asking her opinion on serious matters from the very beginning. How she had adored him for it! She supposed if anybody had a right to interfere in her personal life, such as it was, Alther was the one.

"You're a comfort to me too," she said. "Truly. And I'm not lonely, not the way I was during the year and a day of waiting for you to **Appear**. I just wanted-oh, I don't know what I wanted. It doesn't matter now."

"It matters to me," said Alther in his gentlest voice.

"I know." Marcia sighed, slammed the book shut and pressed her palms against her closed eyes for a moment, breathing deeply. "It's fine, Alther. I'm fine. The gossips will stop gossiping as soon as they find a new topic to discuss, and I don't give a witch's left big toenail what they say about me anyway. I'll be more cautious about whom I spend time with in future, and I will take on an Apprentice when I find the right candidate and not before. Fair enough?"

"Fair enough," said Alther.

"Good." Marcia planted her hands on her hips and looked around the cramped, dark, strange-smelling confines of the library. "Then can you help me find a different book? This one is making me want to sneeze."

"Of course," Alther said, and wafted into the stacks after his own difficult, but much-loved former Apprentice.


End file.
